And it’s almost too convenient a topic to bring up the ‘woulda-coulda-shouldas’ now that the airwaves are full of L’affaire Petraeus of which, Petraeus friend and former spokesman Steve Boylan says the now ex-CIA Directormea culpas “he regrets it on so many levels.” Or as we once said about a hapless high school buddy at his shotgun-wedding — ‘a moment’s pleasure, a lifetime of regret.’

Written by a Jewish rabbi, scholar and author, Erica Brown, “Death: A Nice Opportunity for Regret” detailed an exercise Rabbi Brown conducted where she asked her students to list their small and large regrets on index cards. The responses were insightful, even poignant.

“We rarely connect regret to death, but then we rarely connect death to anything because we’d rather talk about grocery shopping, gardening and taxes. Reading my students’ regrets helped me understand the connection between regret and death,” she wrote.

Regrets.

Even “Ol’ Blue Eyes” who while doing things “My Way,”had his regrets, even if they “were too few to mention.” “Regret,” it’s been said,“is insight that comes a day too late” — although Woody Allen famously wagged that, “My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.” And Arthur Miller summed it up thusly, “Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.”

We try to avoid it but “the feeling of regret” has a way of catching up to us. Fortunately, most of the time, our regrets are private ones.

George Costanza, who some of you may have now discovered is one of my most quotable philosophers, once decided “to do the opposite” rather than “sit here and do nothing and regret it the rest of the day.”

Our top regrets.

But as for inventorying our final regrets, well before we utter those final words or write them down on classroom index cards, reflection confirms what studies categorize as our biggest life regrets. They’re neatly compiled into “common domains”like regrets about education, career, romance and parenting.

A few years ago, palliative nurse Bronnie Ware came up with her own list, gleaned from those about to slip their mortal coils. She identified them as the “Top five regrets of the dying.”

As a nurse involved in hospice care, Ware had the perfect vantage point. She cared for patients at the end of life and then blogged about their deathbed revelations at her blog called “Inspiration and Chai.”

Ware’s top 5 list resonates with truth:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

Transforming regret.

In her essay, Rabbi Brown notes “You can’t eliminate a regret, but you can transform one.”This, of course, presupposes there’s time sufficient for transformation — never a given when you don’t ordinarily know “about that day or hour.”

In discussing what he called Habit 2, “Begin with the end in mind,”the late Steven Covey memorably asked readers in his best-selling “7 Habits of Highly Effective People,“ to create “A Personal Mission Statement.”

The way to do this, according to Covey, was to start at the end — by envisioning our own funerals. “Imagine that as your casket is being lowered down into the ground and your family and friends are standing around watching. What are they thinking about? When they think of you and your life, which statements, images and memories come up to their minds?

“What do you want them to think, imagine, and remember? It is precisely these statements, images, and memories which should be your principles.”

By living in the moment but cognizant of where we’re headed, at the end — at least we might get to that place once said about living. “Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would most likely be worth it.”

A week ago this past Wednesday, an 83 year old man at a local golf course picked up a gun and killed himself. His suicide was briefly noted by our local paper but the news item was short on specifics, not even his name.

Many years ago, poet John Donne wrote, “Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind.” I remember Donne’s Meditations from college. I always believed Donne made a good point.

I didn’t know this stranger who’d chosen such a peculiar place for the dolorous denouement of his life. Nonetheless his death diminishes me. I dwell on it since.

Because I play that golf course often, I knew I’d think of him the next time I was there. Why did he do it? How could he do it? Where on the course did it happen? Those questions and others ran through my mind this week.

I finally asked a course employee about the death. She told me how saddened she was. She said she knew him because he was a golf course regular, with a home on the course. It turns out, he’d been suffering from pancreatic cancer.

Statistically, 95% of those diagnosed with this malignancy are dead within 5 years. It’s a grim and painful disease. It depresses and devastates its victims.

Why had he chosen the golf course to end his life? I don’t believe it was to make a statement. A part of me wants to think he’d created a lot of good memories on that course.

But beyond the shock of the groundskeeper who found him is the impact a violent death like this has to have on family and friends. I ponder the means and the reasons. I can only imagine what when through his mind.

Was it to end a painful present and more dreadful future? Was it to exercise control over an uncontrollable turn of fate? Was it simply his means for decided-on certitude to a life otherwise well-spent? Or was it because he finally ran out of palliative options?

In 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled there is no Constitutionally-protected right to physician-assisted suicide. As a result, state bans on assisted suicide are deemed constitutionally valid.

So while state bans are enforceable, 2 states took the opposite tact. Instead of a ban, Oregon and Washington made physician-aid-in-dying legally available. Terminally-ill patients can lawfully direct the timing and circumstances of an impending death. A physician can legally prescribe a lethal drug overdose to a terminally-ill patient of sound mind who requests it orally and in writing.

The moral, ethical and religious issues underlying the issue persist. Yet most of us don’t dwell very much on such end-of-life concerns. They only become considerations when death, imminent or completed, intrudes our daily living.

At such moments, especially when a friend or family-member is involved, empathy and compassion compel our consideration. Does a mentally-competent person with a life-ending condition have a right to a dignified death free from pain? And in those circumstances, when it’s a loved one, “What does a terminally-ill person do with a severely-impaired quality of life?”

And finally, what happens if we are that terminally-ill person? What are our options for a peaceful, dignified end to suffering?

Therefore, in weighing this most personal of all decisions, we may realize how truly limited our options sometimes are. Realizing this may be why one person sadly concluded his only way out was on his terms alone on a quiet golf course.